Q: I just read your counselling article for sons and daughters whose parents don’t get along. Now that we have your email address, we would like to ask you for help.
It’s our son and his wife. After 27 years together and five children, of which one was killed in a car accident, she decided to leave home. She told my son it’s none of his business where she is.
I’m hurting for both of them. How can you help us?
A: I have some thoughts that I would like to share with you, but remember as you go through my suggestions that I do not know anything about either your son or his wife. If what I am suggesting does not feel comfortable, please check with a family counsellor close to your community. I think that you will receive better guidance from someone who is able to sit with you and develop a more complete picture of what is going on with your family.
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As I see it, three things stand out for me in your letter: the ages of your son and his wife, the death of the child and who is leaving whom.
If your son and his wife have been married for 27 years, each of them must be at least approaching midlife. This is often a significant time in peoples’ lives.
Midlife is the time in life when the children are either on their own outside the home or at least thinking about leaving the nest.
Raising children takes significant time and energy. When the children finally leave, they often leave behind a vacuum in their parents’ lives. The parents finally have the time to do what they want, but at times they are not sure what it is that they want to do. Many people feel an emptiness, a void, and are not certain what life is all about.
Of course, most people see their way through this difficult time in their lives, find other places to invest their time and energy and quickly carry on without difficulty.
However, some people struggle a bit with midlife and often question the value of those relationships at home that were previously important to them.
Many people end those relationships, and the divorce rate for people in midlife continues to rise. Your son and daughter-in-law are not alone in their mid-life marital struggles.
For your son and your daughter-in-law, this whole situation is likely complicated with the death of one of their children.
I do not know when or how your grandchild died, but I can still say without reservation that I would be surprised if the death of the child was not a factor in the lives of your son’s family.
It is all wrong, isn’t it? Parents are supposed to die before their children, and it becomes difficult when the cycle is broken by the death of the child before the parents. I am not sure that parents ever fully recover from the loss of a child. I suspect that your son and his wife continue to have moments when they wonder why their child had to die.
If I am correct, and both your son and his wife are lost in the search to make some sense out of their lives, the issue of who leaves who becomes important.
It appears that your daughter-in-law left the home. In all probability, your son would like her to return and is most likely wondering what he can do to get her back. That seldom works.
Your son’s task is to challenge his own understanding of what life is all about and try to make sense out of it for himself.
The more he is able to make personal progress, the better are his chances for rebuilding his family, either with his wife or without her.
Your task throughout all of this is to simply listen, without judgment, to your son and his wife. That is going to be difficult to do.
You see the two of them hurting each other, and it will be a formidable task not to step into their family, taking sides and getting angry.
However, it is important. You will give each of them the support they need If you can just listen to them and give them opportunities to explore with you what is and is not important to them.
Hopefully they will also seek professional guidance.
